Mrs. Pollifax Unveiled Read Free Page B

assume, you know, he worries.” Especially, thought Bishop when Emily Pollifax is concerned. No doubt Carstairs was suddenly remembering the nasty prisons in Syria: the Mezza in Damascus, for instance, and Tadmor just beyond the ruins of Palmyra, not to mention the fact that Mrs. Pollifax had returned from her last trip with a bullet freshly dug out of her arm. “It will pass,” he lied.
    “And so must I,” said Mrs. Pollifax with a glance at her watch. “I believe there’s a car waiting for me somewhere, and the plane you sent for me this morning.” She rose. “See you Sunday, Farrell,” she told him with a smile.
    And having said good-bye she went home to reassure Cyrus that Syria was merely a reconnaissance trip, a matter of making inquiries about a missing young girl named Amanda.

2

    M rs. Pollifax arranged for Mrs. Lupacik to cook dinners for Cyrus while she was away; the two had already become friends when Cyrus had occupied the living room with a broken leg while Mrs. Pollifax, at the same time, had lain in bed upstairs with a particularly virulent case of flu. Mrs. Lupacik, she remembered, has also proven very educational for Cyrus, being an expert on the plot and history of every existing soap opera.
    After canceling her karate lesson, and the talk she was to give at the Save Our Environment club, Mrs. Pollifax said her good-byes, packed one suitcase and a carry-on bag, and at dawn met Farrell at Kennedy Airport.
    “Cyrus pacified?” he asked sympathetically.
    “Partially,” she told him. “He’s teaching law three days a week; he says he feels useful and is enjoying it very much, which is quite natural since, after all, that’s
his
world.”
    Farrell nodded. “And this, my dear Duchess, admit it or not, is
your
world.”
    She smiled. “I would hate to admit that,” she told him, “but it’s certainly more useful than raising prizewinning geraniums. Do you think I’m addicted, Farrell?”
    “We all are,” he said cheerfully. “Why the hell else would we be here at dawn, prepared for another plunge into the unknown? Not to mention a long
long
flight ahead of us, and a stopover in London.”
    She sighed.
“Very
long—I remember,” she acknowledged, and before boarding invested in six magazines.
    I t was late evening when Mrs. Pollifax and Farrell landed in Damascus. The plane from London had been delayed several hours due to fog, and when they disembarked it was to enter a dimly lit terminal almost deserted except for a few khaki-clad police leaning on rifles and observing the passengers with mild curiosity. Because of the fog and the delay there had been cancellations and the plane arrived half-filled; at Passport Control only one official was on duty, which led to a thirty-minute wait, after which, securing their luggage, they passed into the Arrivals hall. Here too there was the feel of late-hour desertions: the booths that would earlier have been manned by hotel representatives were mostly abandoned, leaving behind only bright signs describing the delights of the Cham Palace, the Meridien Hotel, the Sheraton, Semirames, and Umayyad.
    As they approached the Information counter Farrell and Mrs. Pollifax were intercepted by a young man in tweed with a shock of red hair. “Pollifax and Farrell?” he asked.
    “Sounds like a vaudeville team,” said Farrell. “That’s us, yes.”
    “Jacoby from the embassy,” he told them, shaking hands. “Welcome to Syria, I’ve a car waiting.”
    “So kind of you,” murmured Mrs. Pollifax, suppressing a desire to yawn.
    With a brisk professional smile Jacoby said, “Since you are relatives of the late Miss Pym—”
    Oh dear
, thought Mrs. Pollifax,
late Miss Pym?
    “—we want to be of service to you in any way we can. We’ve scheduled a meeting for you—not in the morning; it’s nearly Monday already, you’ll want to rest, but Tuesday morning we’d like to go over with you everything we’ve done to find her. The ambassador will want to